German Bikes – Group Test

Cycling Plus head honcho Rob Spedding puts six German road bikes to the test.

For this test cycling plus brought together six really nice German bikes we wanted to put to bed the popular conception that German bikes were boringly ruthlessly efficient and that the design was a little bit dull first up canyons enduro race a Oh 7.0 it’s an aluminium frame with full

Shimano or Tegra groupset Mavic acts in one wheels and good quality finishing kit bomb tracks hook to is a cyclocross bike in a road bike test but it’s made with good quality Columbus chromis steel and as it’s a cross bike it comes with Rams new one by rival one gearing

Silverback Cirelli two has full Shimano el tigre build fulcrum Racing three wheels a raft of carbon kit and the weight is seriously impressive cubes lightning c62 like other bikes here has Shimano or Tegra all over it it’s got mostly carbon components and fulcrums Racing 44 Aero

Wheels shod with 1201 tires as it expect storks a narrow disc has this brakes they’re Shimano hydraulic numbers and you also get Shimano 105 kit + DT swiss wheels that can be run with tubeless tires finally Focuses racy coyote’s 3.0 it’s got hydraulic disks from Shimano clearances for big tires and focuses

Clever wrapped through axles as you’d expect with canyon the Gerace al 7.0 offers loads of value for money with its almost full Tegra build it’s got a KMC chain but that’s just splitting hairs and Mavic ax in one wheels the canyon as you’d expect does offer great value for

Money great value for money doesn’t mean anything if it rides terribly though the good news of course is this bike doesn’t can you make really good a Dominion bikes and the geometry of this one actually mimics the carbon enduro race CF so you’re getting the same bike just

In a slightly different material don’t believe what you’ve heard about aluminium being uncomfortable if you have heard that this bike is very in fact the ride is really Pleasant it handles well it climbs well it does everything well the only thing we say about it is it’s just really nice it

Probably isn’t that exciting but if you are after a really solid great value bike this hits a mark I’ll be honest the bomb track hooked to is a bit of an outlier in this test it’s a cyclocross bike or I suppose at a push we could call it a gravel bike

Because they’re on trend right now it’s got trams 1 by 11 rival one group set that means you’ve only got one leaver that actually does any shifting and this is all the rage amongst their crosses at the moment they seem to really like it we did find that the 11:32 cassette

Didn’t actually offers much range as we would have hoped it’s not that brilliant for actual off-road climbing but it’s probably got just about enough the TRP spire mechanical brakes are the best mechanical brakes you can get pretty much but they don’t have the stopping power of hydraulic brakes we also found

That the Continental cross tires weren’t that brilliant in really wet mud and they weren’t that brilliant on the road so all in all the bomb track was a little bit of a disappointment the Columba’s chroma steel frame is really good-looking and it rides really nicely but the bike is a little bit

Heavy the tires aren’t that brilliant and we just don’t think at this price this bike is as versatile as it could be Silverbacks South african-born founder Dion Retief actually says he wants silverback to be the apple of the bike world we were impressed with the value

Of the silverback sur le – it weighs under 7.25 kilograms which is pretty impressive it’s got a full carbon frame as you’d expect it’s got Shimano all tegra all over it which is fantastic but it is the go-to group set at this price point and fulcrums impressive racing 3

Wheels the frame angles are actually on the steepest side so this bike is quite racing but we like that and that’s probably a little bit more German than some of the more comfortable bikes on the test it would be fair to say that the ride on this bike is dramatically

Efficient I know that’s a stereotype but it’s true that’s not necessarily a bad thing it’s also surprisingly comfortable helped by the slim seat stays but what the silverback does well is handle like a dream it’s a great descender it’s also a pretty good climber too we really like it one note

Of caution if you live in a hilly area and you’re not very good at climbing the 1125 cosette is actually quite racing particularly nowadays where 11:28 is more the standard so if you want a big bailout gear this probably isn’t the bike for you the cube lightning C 62 s

Color scheme divided a little bit of opinion here at cycling plus it’s called carbon and green apparently we don’t know what that means some people loved it other people not so much well they couldn’t argue about though was the quality of the bike it really is

Very nice and it also offers great value again as you’d expect with cube you get full o Tegra and fulcrums racing 44 aero wheels so a really nice package it’s actually quite similar to the silver bat in that this is a bike designed for the prospective racer so it’s got steeper

Angles and a short wheelbase so it’s really fling a ball it climbs really well and it’s also a great handler it’s everything you’d want from a fast bike it’s also got an 11 to 28 cassette so it’s a little less racy in that respect than the silverback which is so closely

Resembles and of course that’s great if you want to go up hill stalks scenario disc is probably the raciest bike here it’s got a short wheelbase steep angles and a short head tube it’s a bike for chucking around some of us with size 45 feet or bigger did have a few issues

With hill clearances and that meant we did find ourselves every now and again clipping the chain stains as we pedaled the stalk is a fast handling bike it’s got pretty light wheels so it climbs really well too and because it’s got this brakes you can have a lot of fun on

Twisty descents but German stereotype alert coming up it majors in firmness and efficiency the stalk is the most expensive bike in this test but unlike many of the other bikes on test it doesn’t actually have shmaaya or Tegra as its group set it uses 105 105 is

Still a brilliant group set it’s just a bit heavier and not smooth as it’s more expensive rather you might have guessed because it’s sitting behind me but the focus Keio disk 3.0 is the winner of this test that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s read cycling pass over the last 10 years

Because we’ve always liked you might expect a frame engineered for this rate to be much heavier than hits window counterpart focus though claim that that’s not the case they reckon it’s just 20 grams heavier than its win rate brother everything about the focus ko is slick and modern the gear and brake

Cable is all internally routed and it’s easily switchable to electronic gearing so is pretty damn future-proof something we really like about the focus is the rat thru-axle basically that’s rapid axle technology and focuses pilant quarter turn and you can take the wheel in and out you don’t have to worry about

Alignment and we reckon they’re actually quicker to you than quick release we’re also really impressed by the amount of tire you can get on this bite it takes up to 28 but we actually put a 30 on without any trouble at all so this bike is probably as close to a gravel bike

I’ve done that again as you can get in a real road bike the caios frame isn’t as compliant as some here but it makes up for that with its clever concept CPX seat post it’s got a little split in the middle which has quite a bit of give and

Really does add up to a comfortable backside the styling isn’t going to set the world alight but as a package the coyote brilliant the old Tegra as you’d expect works fabulously and the braking is consistent it’s fast it’s fun we love it